The beauty of offensive playmakers is that you can always find ways to get them the ball. Defense is harder, because if you have a stud, and then a bunch of holes in your D, teams are going to be able to exploit that easier than getting the ball out of your offensive guys hands and into the hands of JAGs.

Even outside of Peterson, there are guys like Jamal Charles that you can feed the rock and run hard, or you can get him involved in the passing game, and there is always the threat of a huge play. You'd pass on that because of arbitrary things like "don't take a back in the first?"

You have to build in the trenches no matter what type of weapons you get, but if I have an elite QB already, I'd rather pair him with an elite RB over an elite receiver probably. But you can build both ways.

The beauty of offensive playmakers is that you can always find ways to get them the ball. Defense is harder, because if you have a stud, and then a bunch of holes in your D, teams are going to be able to exploit that easier than getting the ball out of your offensive guys hands and into the hands of JAGs.

Even outside of Peterson, there are guys like Jamal Charles that you can feed the rock and run hard, or you can get him involved in the passing game, and there is always the threat of a huge play. You'd pass on that because of arbitrary things like "don't take a back in the first?"

You have to build in the trenches no matter what type of weapons you get, but if I have an elite QB already, I'd rather pair him with an elite RB over an elite receiver probably. But you can build both ways.

As usual, you pretty much go BPA.

Exactly. You win football games by having good football players. The key is to have a coach who is flexible schematically. If you can put good football players in good positions, you win. It sounds oversimplified, but that's how it is. You can get caught up in details and statistics about which positions you should pick in whatever round it is, but there are always exceptions. Trust your scouting and pick the best player you can. Obviously you have to take need into consideration, but it's most important to just acquire talent.

Here's what Patrick Daughtery thought, he's not NFL GM or anything but I always like different perspectives when guys break film down:

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Film review reveals it certainly isn’t a talent issue. T-Rich is built like a fullback, but still looks every bit his 4.48 40-yard dash time once he gets a head of steam. And when he gets a head of steam … man, he’s hard to bring down. Even Sunday he was ping-ponging off of defenders, and dragging them with him when he wasn’t running headlong into a 5-6 man pile. But here’s where we arrive at our problem: T-Rich was running into too many piles. There were many reasons why. Although not sub-par, the Colts’ run blocking was far from stellar. OC Pep Hamilton was also getting too cute. He seemingly wanted to get Richardson up to speed on every play in the playbook, while too many of his zone-blocking calls took too long to develop. At one point, CBS play-by-play man Kevin Harlan quipped that Richardson was “going to see every play in this playbook, isn’t he.”

But much like T-Rich’s talent, neither the Colts’ blocking nor play-calling were ultimately the issue: It was T-Rich’s head. In a nutshell, he was taking too many “thinking steps.” Too often, T-Rich took the rock and then stood around with it, letting the defense come to him instead of taking the fight to the defense. On one hand, it’s admirable that a runner so violent at heart could be so patient. But while T-Rich was thinking about where to take the rock, the defense was penetrating. More often than not, it resulted in 2-3 yard runs for a player who very much has the ability to average five yards per carry. T-Rich is simply giving the defense too much time to react. He needs to turn off his brain and just go. Occasionally, it’s going to result in some “brick wall” runs. But T-Rich is fast enough to hit the hole before the defense knows what hit them, and strong enough to drag them once he does.

Some people could say some of those problems are his vision, which has been questioned before. I really don't care about the blocking, he's a top 5 pick and should be able to overcome it with his measurables. I believe Doug Martin was missing both of his pro bowl Guards last year and had the season he had.

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Originally Posted by Scott Wright

I guarantee that if someone picks Cam Newton in the Top 5 they will regret it.

Ravens last year were #15 in passing offense. Our running backs mattered a ton. Unless you have one of the 3/4 elite QBs you need some balance from a good RB and rushing attack. Ray Rice and Bernard Pierce made a big difference. I agree that offenses need to be built around your QB, but not all QBs can carry the full load all the time. Good running backs are gamebreakers and can save a struggling offense.

All these hard and fast rules make zero sense for the NFL. Like others have said, if there was one way to do thing it would be easy. NFL tactics for everything are constantly changing and shifting. What was true yesterday and today might not be tomorrow.

How do you know if a RB will be the next AD? Peterson fell in the draft to #7. It wasn't apparently obvious then and it won't be obvious with the next all time great. Its easy for people look back and say he shouldn't have fell but he did. Teams will still take chances on talented Running backs.

Adrian Peterson is the best case scenario possible for a RB.

Now think about all that Minnesota has accomplished since drafting Peterson. Two playoff appearances in all those years, and the only playoff wins in 2009 when Brett Favre was having a career year.

Being patient as a runner isn't Richardson's problem. Maybe once he gets more comfortable with his blockers in Indy and has a better idea how holes open up with his new oline, he might bust something.

Running 100 per hour at the snap isn't going to magically make Trent a 1500 yard RB.

It's hard to believe his problems come down to poor field vision, but that's the most likely problem thus far. He seems unable to see cutback lanes or have the ability to find the creases to daylight in traffic.

It's funny to me that there are people who argue the ZBS 'makes' RBs and any player can excel in that scheme. Uh, no they can't.

If a RB can't let his blocks set up, see how pursuit is being blocked up front and know when to press the hole, he's always going to run into tacklers in a ZBS.

Trent has time to figure it out, but not every RB is suited for the ZBS.

So they would have been better off not drafting him? No one is arguing RB is more important than QB.

no, but the impact of a great runningback in the NFL today isn't such a big deal anymore. You can have a really great running game with a couple of middle of the road backs that you signed off the street or drafted in the middle rounds...and you can find stud RBs in the 2nd-7th round every single year.

Are we talking about Adrian Peterson, or are we talking about Trent Richardson? It's always been obvious that Richardson was no Peterson, even if the pre-draft hype said otherwise.

Prock is talking about his boy AD, who's the best RB prospect that I've seen, and who dominated as a rookie, and who about a year ago went off on the best twelve-game stretch I've ever seen. That guy is totally worth a top-10 pick.

I love guys like Matt Forte, Jamaal Charles, and Lesean McCoy; but their draft position is what it is. Richardson probably should have gone in their range.

IMO second one is way worse : On the 1st one, one could argue there IS (was) a hole (albeit a lot smaller) where he chose to run, and the position of the safety would have made it a bigger gain if he could have gotten through, so we could argue he took a gamble and wanted to go for the homerun (now do I believe that? probably not). On the second one, he just passes on an easy touchdown for no possible reason.

Yeah, the first one really isn't as bad as the second one. There's a huge hole to the right side, but Richardson isn't quick or fast enough to make anything out of that when he's already going the other way. There was some space where he was headed towards, but he did that weird little shuffle step directly into contact, which is obviously bad too.

The second one though...I don't even know how you can explain that.

Agree with cgf though. I've seen really good runningbacks make questionable cuts and decisions. Can't really bury the guy for those specific plays, but it is illustrative of his larger issue.